Old images provide a lot of interesting things that can tell a lot about the unit and practices beyond what the actual focus of the photo was.
In this post I’ll look at a couple of images and try and break down some of the things that I go looking for either because I know about it or because it may help with some research or to verify something.
So here we have a image of some chaps from the 8th Bn Sherwood Foresters Transport Section cleaning tack. The image is from 1912 and the 8th were a Territorial unit. The assumption is that the photo is taken at the annual camp. So we have a group of lads cleaning the tack and harnesses of the draught horses.
Firstly looking at the seated lads, there is a mix of ages from the young to the old. Side caps and Service Dress Cap on display and the bloke second from the left looks like his is a old sweat with his side cap worn as it should while the lad of the right hand side looks like he’s been given on on the basis that he’ll grow into it. But we can see cap badges and also shoulder titles in this group.
We can also see that they all appear to have their putties worn the “non mounted” way, which is that they have put them on from the ankle to the knee and tied off below the knee. The Mounted units do it the opposite way so that there is less likelihood that the tape on the putties would rub against the saddle and come undone. Why is this important? Often Infantry transport troops would follow the rules for mounted troops with wearing Riding Breeches and wearing putties in the ‘Cavalry Way’.
Also it is interesting to see that they are all wearing what looks like civilian collarless shirts (Grandad shirts in modern terms) this isn’t surprising as regular soldiers would only be issued with one shirt. Also the wearing of civilian waistcoats, very common in photos of territorials of the time.
The cheery looking lad on the left is also wearing civilian boots with a more pointed toe that that of the issue B4 or B5 Army boot. It wouldn’t be a surprise for most of these lads to be wearing their own boots as hob nail boots would have been a day to day working item of footwear.
As they are cleaning the tack I would then start looking at the parts and try and identify items that would be standard Army issue or items that were different. I can see Port Mouth Reversible (PMR) Bits being cleaned, the 2 bits that can be seen at the very front of the image are not clear on what type they are. The bulk of the harnessing looks like normal draught horse harness.
With a lot of images of Territorials you often find that lots of civilian tack and harnessing gets used, where you don’t know that the unit is a territorial this can sometimes be a bit of an indicator.
When looking in towards the horse there are some real gems to pick up on here. we have 2 low level (ground) picket lines in use, one front and back. You get a good indication of the spacing of the horses on a picket line and good clear image of each of the horses with heel ropes and straps fixed to the rear picket line. With this photo it allows me to see how these lines would be laid out , the spacing and more important is that as you look at it the lines are tensioned quite tight and that now creates the question for me to look into is how did they get the lines so tight?
The horses are tied to the front line using the head collar and lead rope. there is enough slack/ play in both ropes (lead rope and heel rope) to allow the horse to stand, lie down, lift it’s head, eat etc but without causing too much hassle to it’s neighbour on the line. Although horse No2 from the left is quite close to No1 horse, this may be because it does have a heel rope. When you check the cavalry and yeomanry manuals it does state that not every horse on the picket line needs to be fitted with a heel rope – if its temperament and behaviour doesn’t require it then it shouldn’t be used.
There is a muck heap at the end of the line and it shows that the horses are left to just get on with eating. So whats important for me from this point, it shows that once you have the horses tied to the lines then you can just crack on with other works, they are not manpower intensive which has been stated in a few parts of the chapter in RE History Volume 5.
So moving onto another image. we have a late war image of riders, resting off the horses, so what can you tell from the image?
What makes it in the second half of the war – the main indicators are the Brodie Helmets and the Small Box Respirators (SBRs) in the haversacks
This is a short break by the troops as they have dismounted and are holding the horses by the reins, rather than undoing the lead rope.
The blokes are cavalry troopers, mainly identified by the 9 pouch bandoliers (5 front and 4 on the rear). Its hard to see any unit or brigade badges, often it is easier to spot Canadian and Australian mounted units from Brigade/ Division badges on the arm.
Moving onto the horses, they have a full combat load, the UP saddle is kitted out with all of the kit that you would expect for cavalry with one exception but we’ll get to that in a moment.
So what we have is the horses have a 9 pouch bandolier around the neck carry 90 rounds of .303″ ammunition, also around the neck is the 10 feet lead rope (one end attached to the leather head collar of the UP headset/Bridle set, the other end is in the form of a hangman’s noose).
The UP Saddle has packed wallets on the front and the rain cape folded and strapped on the top of them. The back of the saddle has the rolled Greatcoat strapped to the back.
The photo shows a really clear view of the SMLE rifle in the leather rifle bucket. The two items with the Rifle bucket are a Feed bag and a canvas water bucket. The feed bag/ nose bag would have carried the hard feed such as oats and would be tied off and tied to either the rear arch or onto the brass loop on the Saddle fans.
The canvas water bucket would often be carried folded up and strapped to the Cavalry sword, but it regularly seen as here where the rope handle of the bucket being looped over the stock of the SMLE in the rifle bucket.
The one item that is missing from each of the horses seems to be the 1908 Cavalry Sword. You would expect to see the top of the sword on the far side of these horses but looking over this group there is no sign of swords. Now this doesn’t indicate that they aren’t cavalry as there is a clue to what they could be else where in the photo.
Mixed in the group you will start to spot what looks like a number of pack horses, The first pack horse is the 4th horse in but the clues are a bit more clear as you look further in. There is a pack horse further in and has it’s head lowered which appears to have a Hotchkiss machine gun. (See below)
To further confirm that this is a Cavalry Hotchkiss Machine Gun Section you can see the Machine Gun Clip/ammunition Wallets attached to the front of the UP Saddle of one of the horse.
A clear image of the saddle wallets are show below and in the lower image is an plate from the Hotchkiss manual showing one of the saddle loads.
From what you can see is that there is often a lot that can be taken from a “run of the mill” photo. I find that looking beyond the main focus of the image you can start to pick up more information on the unit and also on the saddlery, and the key thing for me is how the saddles were actually packed/loaded in the field or how units actually operated. Did they follow the regulations or was there field modifications?
The aim of this post was just to give an idea of the type of things that you can pick up to when you really start looking at old images and photos.